


interlude

by arexnna



Series: ways back [1]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: (-ish), Angst, F/M, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-22 13:13:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7440553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arexnna/pseuds/arexnna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>post-Civil War, pre-Bucky going under where Nat has something she needs to say first</p>
            </blockquote>





	interlude

She doesn’t know how, but Steve finds out.

Natasha has never told anyone – not Clint, not Nick, no one. And still, Captain America knows.

She doesn’t think _he_ would’ve told Steve, doesn’t even think he actually remembers, so how Steve knows is news to her.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

It’s the first thing he says to her the moment they meet – the first thing that falls from his mouth before he shakes his head, muttering out a ‘Hey, Nat’ when she arches her eyebrow at him. It’s been a couple of months, two, maybe three, since the whole thing blew over. He’s been trying to reach her over the past weeks, he’d told her over the phone, until Clint finally gives in and gives up her details (- _that traitor_ ).

He has to hound her down over a few calls before she agrees to meet with him. She didn’t question why, but when his opening greeting is that question, she begins to.

“Yeah, a normal greeting is _usually_ expected – but now that we’ve moved past that, what are we accusing me for _now_?”

He deflates at that. He must’ve heard how Tony had reacted to her supposed _betrayal,_ as guilt crosses his face. The arms he has crossed over his chest drops, his hand taking her wrist as he leads her to the closest hidden corner he can find.

She doesn’t ask, follows obligingly, but when he deems the little corner safe, she finally questions his methods.

“Bucky,” he starts. “You knew him.”

“Of course I knew him – he shot at me, remember? Do you need me to remind—“ she begins to lift at the hem of her shirt again until his hand over hers halts the movement.

“You _knew_ him,” Steve repeats. She’s trying not to jump to the conclusion that he _did_ find out, but when he adds, “- _before_ ,” she feels something drop in her stomach.

She could deny what he’s saying, see what he really knows first before she goes on admitting, but it’s Steve, and it’s his best friend, and he deserves to know.

The nod comes harder than she expects for it to. “I knew him,” she confirms. Betrayal crosses his face, but she interrupts his approaching _‘Why?’_. “He trained me in the Red Room. I only knew him as the Winter Soldier,” Natasha defends, her voice lowered as she adds, “and James.”

That throws Steve back. Realisation hits him and at the look that runs across his features, she’s begins to feel like she could’ve left that part out.

“I only found out the Winter Soldier and Bucky Barnes were one in the same when _you_ found out. So I didn’t feel the need to tell you. It doesn’t make a difference anyway.”

Had she known Steve was going to ambush her with this, she would’ve flaked – she doesn’t need people knowing her secrets, no matter who the person or who the secret regarded. What she and James had – that was theirs. But after they wiped and cleaned, reprogrammed and altered their memories, their thoughts, all their moments, it took her years to get them back, and now, it’s only hers to have. He doesn’t remember her like she remembers him, and that’s fine – she was _fine_ with that being buried in the past, but somehow Steve Rogers is the one to bring up what should’ve been six feet in the ground.

She doesn’t even know _how_ he knows – but two guesses says her leaked files from their time in DC played a part.

“You and him… _cared_ for each other?” Steve asks, his brows furrowing, the prospect that their dynamic was more than professional is what seems to daunt him.

“We loved each other,” she answers. It’s not an admission, it’s a fact that she’s not afraid of. She knows what she felt for him in her early years – that _that_ was love, and that she’s never had anything quite like that since. Call it puppy love, call it whatever, but she knows what it was.

Steve’s jaw clenches, too many emotions go through him at once, that even she can’t manage to read them all. “He was capable of that?” His question cuts through her. “Even as the Winter Soldier?”

Natasha nods, “He was capable of a lot. Part of why he was so… _mechanic_ afterwards was because of-“ She doesn’t choke or stutter, but she knows had she continued immediately, she would’ve. So, once she collects herself, “They found out about our _affair_ , and you know _‘love being for children’_ and all that,” Natasha says lightly, though confusion only becomes more apparent on Steve’s face, and _right_ , he _wouldn’t_ get it. He’s not James – he didn’t have to go through all that with her. She shakes herself out of her stupor, “They wiped us both, tortured us in different ways, put him back into stasis. I think he got the brunt of it – he was the ‘trainer’, so he was supposed to know better, but I kind of got away with a slap on the wrist,” she jokes, deflecting in the only way she knows how.

Steve doesn’t buy it. “Taking your memories and whatever torture methods they had isn’t a slap on the wrist, Nat.”

He’s so stern about it that she’s tempted to make a grandpa joke, but instead, she just shrugs. “He still got it worse. It doesn’t always work – the memory loss act. When they were tired of screwing up my mind, they tricked me into finding him, forcing me to see what I did to him – _frozen_ with all these things around him.”

But Steve’s reaction isn’t what she expects, instead of that signature look of sympathy he’s mastered, there’s something that just reads _scared._

She barely gets to snap out her _‘What?’_ before his soft, “ _Nat_.”

He pauses, takes a moment too long, and there’s a sick feeling in her stomach. She hasn’t a clue as to what he’s going to say, but the worry piles up nevertheless. She’s a second away from threatening him to spit it out when he finally does.

“Bucky’s going under cryostasis again.”

-/-

She takes the next flight to Wakanda.

There isn’t any need really – it’s not urgent, not _really_. She had already lunged at Steve before he could explain that Barnes is willingly choosing to go under, that it’s _his_ choice, that he’s _okay_ – but the feeling that had churned inside her just proved how much she needed to see him.

T’Challa greets her with open arms, and while she’s usually adverse to hugs, she trusts him. After all, she uses it as a peace offering after stunning him _multiple_ times.

She’d made him promise to not tell Barnes that she was coming, and he keeps to his word. He doesn’t ask why, doesn’t prod and overstep, and she likes that of him, simply nodding and smiling as he gives her a tour of the place.

He’s to go under in a week, the machine only ready in the next few days, it being his choice to have a couple more days awake.

“I can take you to him,” T’Challa’s voice speaks as an offer, but she just shakes her head.

He eyes squint the slightest, likely wondering why she’d come all the way without wanting to see him, but he knows his boundaries and doesn’t question it.

Instead, he gives her a tour of his land, letting her see first hand the richness of the people and their culture, the tours lasting long enough of the day that her mind isn’t always focused on Barnes.

She knows where he is most of the time – makes sure to get informed by T’Challa’s people so that she’d never run into him by accident. She’s in a constant conflict with herself – one part of her telling her that to seek him out, and the other tells her it’s too soon, that he won’t understand, and she’s not _ready_ for that.

-/-

It’s five days to Barnes going under when Steve calls. He tells her that he’s coming at the end of the week – say his goodbye to Bucky, right after he fixes whatever collateral needs his attention.

It’s four days when she forces herself to grow a pair and seek him out.

And so she does.

She goes for stealth, because she wouldn’t be the Black Widow if she doesn’t, right? But it only leads to her having a hand around her throat, and it’s in that moment that she realises she should’ve probably thought this through.

Being the genius she is, she’d decided to sneak up on him, trailing behind him as he walks from the med wing towards the gym, so she’s really the only one to blame when after a corner, she finds herself pinned to the wall with Barnes staring her down.

It takes him a second to process who she is, and when he does, his fingers relax and he drops her.

“Sorry,” he mutters, his eyes dropping as he clenches and unclenches his fists at his side.

But she waves him off – the one second hold he had around her throat was pale in comparison to everything else she’s been put through. “Don’t worry about it,” she reassures, but his grip was strong, and her voice comes out rougher than she’d expected.

His hair veils his face, though not enough for her to miss the guilt clearly evident.

She also doesn’t miss the lack of his left arm.

She’d known – of course she had, but seeing it up close, the metal blunt just barely visible after where the sleeve of his shirt stops – she doesn’t realise her breath is held until he speaks up again.

“Coincidence seeing you here.”

He’s joking, clearly, and it elicits a grin from her, working a curve on the edges of his lips in return.

“I was in the neighbourhood,” Natasha shrugs, and he scoffs at that, rolling his eyes at her, and she’s tempted to berate him when he nods his head towards the gym doors.

“C’mon, spar with me.”

-/-

She argues that she’s at an advantage, having an extra arm and all, but he shrugs and simply replies saying that even if he had his other arm, she’d still beat him anyway. He’s smooth about it, but the man knows just how to compliment her, and it’s terrifying how much of _James_ she sees in him right now.

He puts up a good fight, but then of course, she was pulling her punches, but it’s a good fight either way.

He doesn’t ask any further why she’s here, simply choosing to accept it, but he does thank her for helping both him and Steve at the airport. She smiles and he takes that as enough – it also works to distract him enough for her to clock him in the jaw.

Once they’re beat, Natasha cooling down in one corner and him wiping off nearby, he brings up, “Do you remember everything they did to you?”

She doesn’t question how he must’ve known that _they_ did something to her, though then again, her profile isn’t exactly unknown. “I think so – then again, I doubt I’d ever know if I knew everything. I’ve been picking the pieces up along the way.”

He nods at that, tossing her another towel for her to dry off when he adds, “I guess it’s the same for me. I remembered all my kills first, then came the memories from before I… _died_ , I guess.”

She doesn’t bother pretending she isn’t disappointed that the interval between then and now remains forgotten, but she doesn’t poke at it either. If he doesn’t remember it, just works to prove how advanced their technology was.

“It’s a process,” she reassures. “Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

-/-

T’Challa arranges for food to be made for them. The room they dine in isn’t extravagant by any extent, a simple and plain space with a meal that directly contrasts it.

“Food’s good, huh?” he comments through a full mouth.

The nature of his question makes it feel oddly like a first date.

They never had one of those – none of those domesticities _normal_ couples got. Instead they had training sessions, and secret meetings, and memory alterations.

She hums her response, pressing a soft smile on her lips for him.

He eats like a child. Mostly because he only has one hand to eat with, but _still –_ a child, stabbing at his meat, and stuffing his face.

“So,” Natasha starts, his eyebrow arched for her to continue, “Steve and Sharon, huh?” she brings up and that gets him to laugh.

“Kinda weird don’t you think – she being—“

“Peggy’s niece?” Natasha finishes for him. When he nods with a smile, she agrees, “Pretty weird.”

They eat in silence for a bit, nothing save for the clanking of fork and knife against the plate, the muted chewing and the heavy beating of her heart.

The rest of the meal doesn’t amount to much, but it’s comfortable nonetheless. It’s almost like having lunch with an old friend. _But_ , said ‘old friend’ doesn’t quite remember you the way you remember them. Like she said – _almost_.

They’re not allowed to step outside the building, with Barnes’ situation being what it is, but there’s an indoor garden, a worthy substitute for _actual_ nature with the greens of the trees and the smell of the grass. He seems content with it.

(And that’s all that matters, really.)

“I shot you,” he says suddenly.

“Huh?”

“That’s what you meant, right? When you told me that I should’ve recognised you – that’s what you meant, that I’d shot you before.”

She thinks on it, debating between the whole truth or omission. She thinks on the truth, how he deserves to know – _she_ deserves for him to know – but she remembers the pain of having some of her memories forced back into her, remembers wanting to have picked them up as she went along. So she chooses omission. It can’t hurt anybody.

“Right through me,” she answers, patting at her hip, “You’d think that’d make someone remember you, huh?” she adds playfully. He doesn’t smile. And being just the _social butterfly_ she is, she continues, “If it’s any consolation, it makes for a cool scar.”

His eyes flit up to hers, then down to where her hand had touched at her abdomen. He reaches forward, but at the last second pulls back. But she takes his wrist in her hand, gently pulling it towards her as she works the hem of her shirt up a sliver, the recovered wound shining pink.

His fingers prod softly, the pads of them tracing over the skin, slow and careful. The simple touch is far more intimate than she’s usually comfortable with, but it’s _him_ , and as much as he may not remember that it’s _her_ , _it’s him_.

“I’m sorry,” he breathes out, barely above a whisper when he draws his hand back.

“Not your fault,” she shrugs. The corners of his lips twitch upwards, but she knows it’s more complicated than that. “But, I forgive you,” she says anyway.

He smiles, genuinely this time. What she doesn’t expect is for his had to reach for hers, pulling it towards his left shoulder where metal meets broken skin. “You showed me yours, I show you mine,” he smiles.

It hurts how the memories flood back in, those nights when she’d trace her fingers against his scars, press her lips against the pinkish skin, how she’d try to soothe his demons away. Back then, those nights were all they had to silence the screams in their heads, but like everything good, it was ripped away from them far too soon.

“Thanks,” is all she says once her touch retreats. But from his nod and the look in his eyes, she thinks he understands that what she means is more, _so much more_.

He makes comfortable conversation afterwards, somehow managing to turn it into a ‘bitching about Sam’s sassiness’ session. It flows easily, words managing to roll of without the slightest bit of awkwardness, and now it’s really like they’re just a pair of old friends catching up.

It’s a painful understatement – _old friends_ – but right now, she’ll take it.

-/-

“I know I’m an old man – but you don’t have to pull your punches with me.”

“I’m not _pulling punches_ because you’re old – I’m holding back because you have _one arm_.”

Barnes grin, wide and goofy, towel slung over his armless shoulder. “Way to remind a guy.”

He tosses her his bottle that she catches easily enough, but she hesitates to start drinking. Normally, she’d be perfectly comfortable with drinking others’ water, but with him – it feels oddly intimate. He furrows his brows at her reluctance when she presses on a smile and then tips the water into her mouth.

She raises it in salute, silently thanking him before she tosses it right back at him.

“You’re getting predictable,” he brings up suddenly. Natasha raises a brow. Barnes grins then, pressing on to explain, “Your techniques haven’t changed the slightest.”

Her stomach drops then. He can’t mean from before, can he? Because if he does, _one_ – he’s _wrong_ , the Black Widow is nothing close to predictable, and _two_ – he _remembers._

“Each time we fight, it ends with my head between your legs – think you have a _slight_ kink, Romanoff.”

Relief flows through her. He doesn’t remember. (And then a smaller part sinks again – he _doesn’t_ remember.) But the asshole has the audacity to smirk anyway, dodging right out of the way of the towel she throws at him.

“You’re just bitter you’ve yet to win a fight against me.”

He waves her off, rolling his eyes when he says, “I’ve got a soft spot for you – and even if I didn’t, you _are_ the Black Widow, I don’t think many are on the list of being able to beat you in a fight.”

The _charm_ on this man.

“Are you flirting with me, Barnes?”

“Am I?” he asks right back, “I honestly wouldn’t know – think I might be off my game since the whole-” he gestures at his head.

“Lucky – that’s the one thing they never allowed me to forget no matter how much-“ she mimics him, “- _messing_ they did to me.”

He offers her a sympathetic smile, not adding anything and she’s glad he doesn’t. Nothing anyone could say would help. Instead, he passes an energy bar her way that she accepts all too easily.

“Steve’s arriving tomorrow.”

“Yeah? He and Stark patch things up yet?”

“Barely – but those two need each other more than they’d like to admit, and they’re bound to come around soon enough.”

“And you and Stark?”

“Our egos are too much alike, so we might take a while longer.”

He scoffs at that. “You? Ego? You don’t seem that bad.”

“Yeah well I can be when someone accuses me of being a double agent.”

Barnes ducks his head, eyes downcast before he remeets her gaze. “Thanks for that, by the way – I never said it, but Natalia? Thank you.”

As though she would’ve ever let the alternative happen. She laughs at that, humourless – a joke he wouldn’t get.

“Wasn’t a problem,” she says.

Understatements seem to be a theme recently.

-/-

(It’s when insomnia kicks in later that night that she realises that called her by her given name.)

-/-

He finds her as she’s packing, leaning silently against the door frame as she stuffs her clothes into her duffle. She felt his presence long before she turns, long before she makes it known that she knows, allowing the extra moment before she has to confront him.

“Oh,” she says anyway when she turns, eyes meeting his with his eyebrows raised at her. He’s wearing his hair neatly slicked back, a long sleeved shirt that’s empty on his left, tucked loosely into the sweats he has on.

“You leaving today?”

“Yeah, Hill told me she needs me in for some mission or some… _thing_ ,” she makes up, badly she might add.

“I’ll walk you,” he says.

She slings her duffle bag over her shoulder, runs her fingers through her hair as she looks glances around her room as though she hasn’t already swept it clean.

“Lets go,” she nods her head in the direction they’re headed.

They make small talk. He tells her to get _better_ moves (-the _joker_ he is), she tells him to get a haircut, they warn each other to shut up.

(Both silently take notes.)

They’re at the lobby, and she knows that if she wants to know – to _really_ know, she has to ask, _now_.

He called her Natalia yesterday and that gives her a much needed boost of confidence, but as much as it could mean _everything_ , it could mean nothing – it could be him reading it somewhere, it doesn’t take a genius to decipher that _Natasha_ is the anglicised version of _Natalia_. But she persists.  

“Hey, Barnes?”

“Mm?”

Moment of truth. The make it or break it point. The point of no return. The— _she’s stalling_. 

“I know this is weird to ask – and comes from nowhere really, and I don’t really know where I’m headed with this, or if I even really want to know, but—“

His fingers touch at her arm lightly, the pads barely there, but it stops her rambling nonetheless.

“ _If_ I’m right in where this is headed – and I’m not sure if I want myself to be right or not, cause on one hand while if I’m right, this might be catastrophic, and if I’m wrong I’ll just humiliate myself, _ending_ in catastrophe, then—“

“ _Hey_ ,” it’s her turn to stop him now.

He eyes fall to his feet again, a shy smile playing on the corners of his lips. He takes a moment, then with a sudden burst of confidence-

“I remember you.”

A sharp intake of breath from her when he continues:

“From before – I remember you, I remember us, I remember what they _did_ to _us_. I didn’t remember until that day you showed me your scar, but since then – _God_ , spending these last few days with you without a care in the world, I’m almost tempted to ditch the stasis bullshi—“

“Then _ditch_ it-“ she interrupts, stepping into him, “I can- I can take.. _care_ of you. I know your condition, I know what you went through, I _get_ you. _Please_ ,” she pleads.

With anyone else, she’d feel pathetic, begging someone to choose her, but it’s _James_ and he remembers her.

(He _remembers_ her.)

“ _Natalia_ ,” he says, and with the single name he uses, it really hits her. He does know her, he knows Natalia, before she _became_ Natasha Romanoff, traitor to the Motherland. “When you snuck up on me that first day – I almost crushed your throat. I almost crushed your throat before that too. I need to make sure I have zero triggers before I can feel safe around anyone I… _care_ about,” James rationalises. “We can’t be going out on a date, then you say something like _pancakes_ and _red_ , and I have your pinned under me or something.”

“That doesn’t sound like too bad a thing,” she makes light of his implications. He doesn’t seem to take to her joke too much, shaking his head as he looks away. “But doesn’t that sound nice? Us? On a _date?_ Like a normal couple?”

He smiles then, his eyes fluttering shut as though he’s savouring the thought. “You have no idea.”

She reaches for his arm, the heat he radiates through his sleeve a comfort she’s missed all too much.

“I couldn’t live with myself if I hurt you – anymore than I already have, that is,” he adds, and there’s that self-loathing act he hasn’t been able to shrug off yet.

But she nods anyway. It isn’t fair of her to ask him of this, not when he himself isn’t confident he can manage. She remembers being pushed into getting help she never wanted, remembers the resentment that she kept bottled up for years on end.

“So you remember it all?”

“I think so,” he replies, lips twitching, “Kind of wish I didn’t.” He notices how her forehead creases at that, how she’s suddenly worrying at what he could mean- that he could regret knowing, that maybe— “Cause maybe if I didn’t, then it wouldn’t be as hard to say goodbye.”

She feels moisture well in her eyes, but she smiles anyway, shaking her head as she says, “That’s the corniest thing you’ve ever said, James.”

“Really?” he laughs, shifting his arm over so he can move to hold hers in his hand. “Cause I think I remember us being _pretty_ cheesy from before.”

 _“Yeah,”_ she mutters.

They stay like that for awhile, quiet with each other’s arm in their hands. She smiles at that – they’ve never quite been the hand-holding type of couple, more the _fuck into oblivion and then sneak out through the window_ type.

She thinks back to those times back in the Red Room, how this reminds her too much of having to walk away from each other. Except this time, it’s his choice. She doesn’t know if that hurts more.

Natasha’s being selfish – she knows this, but it’s a kick in the gut that still, he wants to go under, that he can’t trust her to take care of him, that he doesn’t want to be with her (- _yet_ , the soft look on his face tells her, _soon_ , but just not _yet_.)

Her hand moves from his arm to his face, his to her waist, holding his cheek in her palm as he leans into it, eyes fluttering shut and lips curved the slightest upwards.

“I can’t change your mind about this, can I?”

It isn’t surprising, but she lets out a sigh anyway when he shakes his head.

“Okay,” is all she says, because as much as it may hurt her – that she has to watch the man she loves induce himself (even though willingly) under something that’s caused him so much pain and hurt – she understands. James is selfless in a way she could never be. He’d rather inflict this on himself than _possibly_ hurt his friends.

“I should go,” she says, her hand dropping to his neck.

She feels the muscles move as he nods. A part of her doesn’t want to let go from touching his skin, the warm comfort she’s been longing for for far too long, but the smaller, yet the more determined part of her tells her they both need this – that she needs to let him do this, and she needs to let him know she supports him anyway.

He doesn’t say anything after. They stand there, her hand touching the skin of his neck and his on her waist, thumb brushing against the jut of her hip.

They don’t need to say the words to know they love each other, because if she were ever sure about only one thing, it’d be that she loves him all her being.

She leans in and presses a kiss to his cheek, holds it there as his light stubble tickles at her skin, the hold he has on her waist tightens as she steps in. She can’t deal with his lips right now, knows that if she were to press her lips to his, she’d never leave, and he seems to accept it as it is.

She lets go first, letting her hand fall and stepping back. His arm follows her but eventually, his touch vanishes.

Natasha fixes the strap of her duffle over her shoulder, her fingers wiping quickly at her watery eyes.

“Barnes,” she nods, pressing on as convincing a smile as she can manage.

He mimics her, though the curve to his lips quiver and well, she’s always been better at pretending than he was.

“Natalia,” he says instead.

She forces her feet to move, taking a step backwards, and then another, and finally she turns.

It’s when she’s at the exit does she glance back, sending him a pathetic wave as she promises, “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

This time, when he smiles, his lips don’t tremble.

-/-


End file.
